Witnesses give chilling testimony in Donnelly killings

Daniel Tepfer, Staff Writer

Published 12:24 am, Wednesday, January 26, 2011

BRIDGEPORT -- It's the stuff nightmares are made of.

Dale Nel was closing up La Moda Fashions on the Post Road in Fairfield on the early evening of Feb. 2, 2005, when she heard Kim Donnelly screaming from the Donnelly Jewelry Store next door, followed by several gunshots.

Nel said she began walking around the corner when she heard the second set of gunshots.

William Wargo Jr., his wife and two young daughters were perhaps the last, besides Christopher DiMeo, to see the Donnellys alive. That still haunts Wargo.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Feb. 2, they stopped at the Donnellys' store to look for a new engagement ring. Although it was near closing time, Tim Donnelly agreed to stay open longer.

"I was looking for a new ring, but Mr. Donnelly told me we would be better off with a new setting for the same stone," Wargo testified.

While Tim Donnelly helped them choose a setting, his wife played with the girls, ages 6 and 10.

When they had pulled up to the store, there was only one spot left on Sanford Street, just behind a black sport utility vehicle with California license plates -- DiMeo's vehicle. Wargo said his wife was concerned they were blocking the SUV in, but Wargo said he joked: "They're from California; they are in no hurry."

"I just keep thinking about the joke I made to my wife when I saw the black SUV," Wargo lamented later outside the courtroom. "If we had just been delayed a few minutes ... I don't know."

DiMeo is charged with capital felony and murder charges for killing the Donnellys in their store. Already serving a life prison term for killing a Long Island jeweler prior to the Donnelly slayings, he could get the death penalty if convicted in this case.

Kelley and Senior Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Corradino sped through their case Tuesday well ahead of their original schedule, thanks mainly to little contest from the defense lawyers, who have conceded to the jury that DiMeo killed the Donnellys, but intend to reserve their resources for a fight to prevent their client getting the death penalty. The prosecutors are expected to end their case by the middle of next week.

In other testimony in the trial Tuesday, Detective James Carroll, of the Nassau County, N.Y., homicide squad, showed the jury the semi-automatic handgun DiMeo used to kill the Donnellys. The gun was found on the floor of DiMeo's Honda sport utility vehicle, which he abandoned on a Brooklyn street sometime after the crime.

A blood stain was found by police on the side of the gun and DiMeo's lawyer, Michael Courtney, stipulated that the blood was Tim Donnelly's.

Nassau detective William Brosnan questioned DiMeo at the Atlantic City, N.J., Police Department following his arrest in a motel there days after the Donnelly murders.

"When I asked him about Connecticut he said, `I'm f---,' " the detective recalled.